Quote of the Day

I wholeheartedly believe that each and every antiquity in any part of the world should eventually go back to its homeland. Even if these objects are made of stone, just as people have souls, so do animals, plants and monuments. Taking a monument away destabilises the world and is disrespectful to history.

January 28, 2016

The Musée des beaux-arts in La Chaux-de-Fonds in Switzerland has been in the news recently, for their refusal to return a Constable painting looted by the Nazis to the heirs of the rightful owner.

The excuse given by the museum is that they did not know that they purchased the item in good faith. Further to this, they also argue that as a neutral power in the Second World War, their history is unencumbered by the holocaust.

Neither of these reasons holds much credibility for me though. If the legitimacy of a purchase is merely down to good faith, then surely this leads us down a route where nobody asks awkward questions when making a purchase. Even if the due diligence process was thorough, this should not be an acceptable excuse. although perhaps there is an argument that some compromise could be made – either between the museum and the rightful owners, or potentially the governments of countries that expect their institutions to be able to do the right thing. There is no precedent for the second argument – that Switzerland had no involvement in the situation that led to the looting. Britain was actively fighting against the Nazis during the Second World War, arguably giving it a stronger claim to this than Switzerland, but various institutions have already made restitutions in similar cases and the right to do this is enshrined in law by the Holocaust (Stolen Art) Restitution Act.

Despite all the above though, what this article skips over, is that the Holocaust is not a special case in this regard. Museums should make far wider examinations of provenance and their justifications for ownership. The Benin Bronzes and the Parthenon Sculptures in the British Museum are just some of the many other cases currently outside of the legal frameworks that allow for the return of Nazi loot, meaning that the institutions that hold them feel little need to argue a case, as they know that there is no legal way for the items to be deaccessioned from their collections at present.

Why a Swiss gallery should return its looted Nazi art out of simple decency
Jonathan Jones
Wednesday 27 January 2016

Memory has many colours. A work of art that survives the centuries is an embodiment of history, marked invisibly by all the hands that have held it. Who owned it? Where did it hang? These are not just arcane questions for scholars but the network of human experience that haunts works of art in museums and makes them richly alive.

The hunt for works of art looted by the Nazis matters. Researchers who discover the true owners of a painting stolen in wartime Europe and later acquired innocently or knowingly by a museum or gallery are piecing together shadowy stories of oppression, injustice, murder and destruction. Why did the Nazis loot art from Jewish owners? It was not only greedbut an ideological belief that Jews contributed nothing to European civilisation and did not deserve to share in it.Read the rest of this entry »

January 27, 2016

In the face of increased ISIS attacks against the ancient heritage of the areas that they occupy, UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova outlines the three ways that she believes the world must fight back against such acts.

Fight against the illicit trafficking of cultural objects coming from Iraq and Syria

At this very moment, the invaluable legacy of humanity’s common heritage is under attack in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Libya. Heritage sites are destroyed and looted to finance terrorism, individuals are persecuted on religious and cultural grounds, cultural diversity is targeted.

The destruction of culture has become an instrument of terror, in a global strategy to undermine societies, propagate intolerance and erase memories. This cultural cleansing is a war crime that is now used as a tactic of war, to tear humanity from the history it shares.Read the rest of this entry »

Switzerland has returned to Italy 45 boxes of ancient Etruscan art stolen during illegal excavations and stashed away for more than 15 years, including two rare sarcophaguses, authorities said on Thursday.

“The antiques were given back to Italian authorities today,” a statement from Geneva’s public prosecutor’s office said.Read the rest of this entry »

Those in the UK who are opposed to the return of the Parthenon Sculptures (I think we can make a safe guess that this is the camp that George Osborne sees himself in), never seem to see it as a serious issue. More often than not, any questions about the sculptures are brushed aside with a quick joke – nine times out of ten, referring to someone having lost their marbles.

It might have been vaguely amusing the fist time – but its not like the quip has not been made thousands of times before. Further to this, campaigners have also pointed out such remarks stigmatise mental health issues.

Perhaps the lack of concern for the Parthenon Marbles stems from the fact that knowledge of them amongst many people is in fact fairly limited. They hope that distracting discussions with a joke hides their own ignorance.

Yanis Varoufakis has hit out at George Osborne after the Chancellor made a joke about a contentious marble sculpture taken from Greece to Britain in the 19th century

During an exchange with shadow chancellor John McDonnell in the House of Commons Mr Osborne referenced the fact that Mr Varoufakis would be speaking at a series of events organised by Labour.

“Today he says he is going to tour the country with former Greek finance minister Mr Varoufakis to educate us all about economics. The one thing they’ve got in common is they’ve both lost their marbles,” the chancellor said.Read the rest of this entry »

Recent events in Syria & Iraq have helped focus people’s minds on the issue though, although the looting of Iraq over ten years ago ought to have been enough for Parliament to see the benefits of ratifying the convention.

Lords put pressure on UK government to sign Hague Convention this year
by Anny Shaw
21 January 2016

Members of the House of Lords and leading cultural heritage experts are again calling on the government to ratify the Hague Convention seven months after it agreed to sign the international agreement. If parliament swiftly ratifies the treaty’s two protocols before any of the other five permanent members of the UN Security Council, the UK will also be in a position to set up a headquarters in London for the Blue Shield, the cultural equivalent of the Red Cross.

During a debate in the House of Lords on 14 January, Baroness Andrews said there was a “growing sense of urgency” to sign the convention following “grotesque failures in Iraq” and “the increasing barbarity in Syria”. She added: “The events of the past six months have, I believe, changed the game.”Read the rest of this entry »

December 10, 2015

Greek Politics is always intriguing to an outsider. I am whether there is any substance to this decision to strike legal action off the list of possible options for the return of the Parthenon Marbles, or whether there is a sensible basis behind it.

No doubt, in due course, more will be revealed, but I feel that it is a great shame to write off methods of retrieving the sculptures, that have yet to be fully explored, while planning to repeat other methods that have been tried before and failed.

Greece is no longer mulling court action to win back the Parthenon Marbles from the British Museum in London, Culture Minister Aristides Baltas said Tuesday, adding that the government would kick-start a diplomatic campaign to repatriate the 5th century BC statues.

Questioned by MPs during a session of Parliament’s education committee, Baltas said that the government was unwilling to put forward a legal claim “most importantly because we risk losing the case.”Read the rest of this entry »

George is a Greek comedian living in the UK. Has appeared in all of the biggest clubs in the UK, as well as on BBC1’s This Week (twice) and The One Show.

In the UK his mates say he’s too Greek, but he’s not Greek enough for his parents abroad; he’s trying to fit in in a world he believes to be more stupid than him. Also, he is dodging his national service.Read the rest of this entry »

August 13, 2015

Despite assertions made in many new sources in May, it was generally left unreported, that the legal team from Doughty Street Chambers (Geoffrey Robertson and Amal Clooney) along with Norman Palmer had in fact not delivered their final report to Greece.

This document has now been completed and delivered to Greece. Hopefully it will be given full consideration by the government, possibly leading to a new policy announcement later in the year. I look forward to hearing more in due course about the detail of what has been proposed and any recommendations made.

Yesterday, The Greek Ministry of Culture confirmed that it received the legal opinion of Geoffrey Robertson QC, Norman Palmer QC and Amal Clooney regarding the Parthenon Sculptures in the possession of the British Museum.

It should be noted that between 13-15 May various news outlets including the Daily Mail the New York Times, the Telegraph, the Washington Post, the BBC, and the Daily Beast published stories falsely asserting that Mrs Clooney and her colleagues had delivered a 150-page joint legal report earlier that week advising the Greek Government to take legal action and that this advice was expressly rejected by the Greek government. Certain articles even purported to quote the legal advice from the alleged 150-page report.Read the rest of this entry »

The ancient Athenian site just got an important contemporary update to its environment.

Professors, researchers and students of educational institutions around the world will now have access to the internet upon their visits to the Acropolis. The new option is available thanks to a global roaming access service for members of educational institutions called Eduroam.Read the rest of this entry »

For many years now, various excuses have been given for not ratifying the treaty, despite pressure from archaeologists, NGOs and many within Parliament.

The current status, although not correctly reported in many news sources, is that the UK signed the convention in 1954, but has yet to ratify it. This groups us with Ireland, Andora and the Phillipines, ass all other countries that signed were also happy to ratify it.

The current impetus to finally ratify this document is no doubt related to the press coverage of the actions of ISIS in Syria and Northen Iraq. One wonders though why the looting following the deposing of Saddam Hussein in the second Gulf War (or many other similar cases prior to that) was not enough to convince the UK of the importance of the document.

Claims are sometimes thrown about, that the reason for not ratifying was that it would help facilitate the return of the Parthenon Marbles to Greece, although I have never been entirely certain that this was the case. I am assuming that the government (which is opposed to the return of the Marbles) will have looked into the legalities of this particular aspect in detail already.

It’s come years late, but the culture secretary is to pledge the UK to helping save historic and artistic artefacts under threat in conflict-torn countries

Britain is to end years of indecision by ratifying an international agreement aimed at preventing the loss of cultural and historic artefacts in conflict zones, amid growing outrage at the destruction by Isis militants of ancient sites in Iraq and Syria.Read the rest of this entry »

The Acropolis Museum in Athens, Greece, will celebrate its sixth anniversary on June 20 with the inauguration of its temporary exhibition “Samothrace. The mysteries of the great gods.”

The exhibition, a cooperation of the Acropolis Museum and the Antiquity Ephorates of the Rodopi and Evros prefectures, as well as Samothrace antiquities expert Dimitris Matsas, will open for the public on June 20 and will run until September 30.

262 artifacts from the Samothrace Archaeological Museum will travel to Athens, some of which will leave the island for the first time.

The British Museum has come under fire over plans to loan hundreds of culturally significant artefacts, including some of its much-prized “highlights”, to an organisation in Abu Dhabi which has been accused of abusing the rights of workers.

Curators at the museum have drawn up a list of around 500 objects, a selection of which could be loaned to the Zayed National Museum in the United Arab Emirates for up to five years.Read the rest of this entry »